5ive Girls

With a title like 5ive Girls it’s understandably easy to create assumptions. Disturbing images of the infamous internet video about some girls and a cup spring to mind. I sincerely think that the makers of this film might have made this connection, hence, the cover art of a huge pentagram of candles surrounding the image of a demonic face. My heart went out to the graphic artists. You could almost hear them thinking “Okay, that doesn’t look anything like a skin flick, does it?”. And to make good and certain that there would be no visual connection to an internet meme of women eating dookie pie, the makers of 5ive Girls opted to style their title as something akin to the Brad Pitt sensation 7even. Well, hats off to ’em, I think they did a hell of a job with what they had to work with.

5ive Girls is the tale of Alex (Jennifer Miller), a supposed bad seed that is abandoned by her father to…wait for it…a Catholic school for girls, to correct her corrupted ways (if the makers of this movie didn’t want you to think this was a skin flick, they’re off to a horrible start). Alex is introduced to Father Drake (Ron Pearlman of Hellboy fame) and four other ‘bad girls’ that are in need of a godly ass spankin’. Alex soon becomes aware of the school’s nefarious past and the demonic entity that dwells within it’s shadowed halls.

All in all, 5ive Girls wasn’t half bad. I seriously had no hope for this flick when I first popped in the DVD. Still, I have no idea how they managed to cast Ron Pearlman on such a tight budget, who knows, maybe the guy has a penchant for Catholic school girls. I will say this though, the 5 girls took a while to settle into their characters and settle down their overacting, but when they did, the movie started looking less and less like a horror skin flick and more and more like what it was intended to be. Guys will love the fact that 5ive Girls is chalk full of chicks in Catholic school girl outfits, spanking, and a few boob scenes. But overall the movie falls short. I think they tried to tackle something way beyond themselves in making the demonic entity ‘Legion’. Yep, you got it, the same ‘Legion’ in the bible that supposedly fucks with Jesus.

5ive Girls is a great example of too many ideas in one pot that just don’t mesh. They try to tackle way too many issues in one sitting. Problem children, neglectful parents that abandon them to religious institutions to solve all of their problems, teen suicide attempts, lesbianism, and crisis of faith. That’s almost too much to type in one sentence let alone cover in a standard horror flick. On top of that, the actors needed more time rehearsing their lines so they wouldn’t have come off so rushed. Obviously, Ron Pearlman’s performance was solid, but the guy is a seasoned actor. I think the makers of 5ive Girls spent too much time trying to up their budget to land Pearlman and completely forgot about special effects. Special effects should never be an after thought in a horror film and CGI definitely does not make up for poor planning. Still though, I’d give this movie a nod for hardcore fans that enjoy some visual stimulation, boobies, and demons that talk shit about the “J-man”. I’ve seen worse…much, much worse.